LOGAN
Logan dropped Angel's arm like it was burning him, but he kept a firm grip on the door.
"What do you mean, that's your brother?"
There were tears on Angel's face now. "Don't hurt him, please."
"What are you saying?" Logan wanted to throw him out into the hallway, but he needed answers. He needed to know who the man was. He needed to know what Angel was going to do if he let him go. "Who does he work for?"
Angel shook his head, shoulders shaking with sobs. "Please let me go-"
"Answer me!" Logan barked.
"I can't say-" he said tearily.
"Like hell you can't say!" Logan snapped. "If you don't tell me, I will call child services and they will put you with your aunt or in foster care. Do you hear me?"
"He could get in big trouble -"
"I'm not telling anyone as long as you answer me."
When Angel didn't make a move to answer, Logan said in a hard voice, "Olivia, tell him what happens to kids who get put into foster care."
"No."
Logan's head snapped back at her calm tone of voice. She wasn't shaking anymore. She didn't look scared. And that infuriated him, that she wasn't taking this seriously.
"Olivia-" he growled.
"Stop it, Logan, this is crazy," she said with equal fury. "He's scared! You're scaring him."
"Olivia-"
"Would you ever give up Elijah?" she said vehemently. "Would you ever, in a million years and a million threats, give up Elijah?"
But Logan wasn't Angel and Elijah wasn't Mark or Mike or whatever the fake or not fake brother's real name was. Logan was Logan and Elijah was Elijah and that was all he knew to be true.
Logan was tired. He didn't want to deal with these lies anymore.
But even more than that, he wanted this random stranger to stop crying over his brother. Logan hated it. He fucking hated it because it hurt.
Because he saw himself in Angel's expression. All his childhood, when his dad would make him scream or cry, Logan wondered whether his dad felt anything. Did he feel remorse? Guilt? Did he wish he wasn't doing what he was doing?
Logan felt guilty, but he felt rightfully angry too.
Is that what his dad had felt when he made him cry?
I am becoming him.
Logan put his hands over his eyes and pressed his fingers into the inner corners and gently squished his eyeballs in their sockets, as if that would give him some answers. When he opened them, Angel was sitting on the floor, still crying, and Olivia was sitting next to him, her hand on her shoulder. She was gently talking to him, very quietly, softly.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "We're not going to hurt you. Please don't be scared."
Angel wouldn't look at her. He had his face turned into the door but he pleaded, "Where's my brother? Please, I just want to know where he is."
Logan's heart twisted. He hated that it did.
I will not be him.
Olivia sighed. "I don't know."
"You have his picture."
"Logan saw him once. That's all. You remember the day I told you he got drugged? Logan remembers him from that night."
"You're wrong. He wouldn't do that."
"He didn't," Logan said, sitting down with them. He was too exhausted from being angry at a crying kid and all the flip flopping of his brain to argue anymore. "It was some lady. I think that guy stopped her."
Angel's sobs quieted slowly after that. When he was just hiccuping, Logan got off the floor and handed him some tissues.
"Bathroom is down that way. I'm making dinner. So don't come out until you wash your hands."
When he left, Olivia helped him with dinner, but her words were clipped and a scowl remained on her face the whole time. Logan couldn't care less. It was all he could do not to scream.
*****
To Logan's relief, Angel did not try to run again. He sat down at the table when he came out, his face ashy, his eyes red and swollen. They ate in deafening silence.
By the time the dishes were done, Logan felt calmer. No one had come breaking down their door. Neither the Sons of Solomon nor the police were at their doorstep. If Angel was going to do something, he would've done it by now.
"Okay," Logan said, sitting down at the table with both Angel and Olivia. "Is your brother's name Mark or Mike?"
"Mark. Marcus."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you."
"Who's not allowing you to? Who makes these rules?"
"Where he works."
"So where does he work?"
"That I know I can't tell anyone."
A shiver ran down Logan's spine. "Is he working for a gang?"
"No! No. He doesn't work for any gang. And I'm not answering any more questions. I'm not supposed to." Angel pressed his lips together.
Logan couldn't think of a single job that was so secretive and dangerous as Marcus's. He took a deep breath. "Angel, if I'm going to help you, I need you to give me something. I promise I will tell no one. Not your teachers, not your brother, not the police, no one. Okay?"
Angel shook his head again.
Olivia said, "Remember when we were on the roof? You said...you said you hated the Sons of Solomon. Is this about that?"
"I can't tell you," Angel repeated. But Logan heard the quiver in his voice.
"We also hate the Sons of Solomon," he told him. "Very, very much."
They sat in quiet for a while after that. Logan began seeing the dark basement walls of Madame Cobra's again, the horror he had felt when Blake's eyes began to glaze over when they were kept captive there, the absolute terror he felt when Elijah was dragged away.
Elijah had come back unscathed, except for a cut on his cheek. Whenever Logan asked about it later, Elijah would vaguely say they wanted to know where Olivia was.
But they hadn't questioned either Logan or Blake after that, and that had been the only time Elijah was alone there.
Logan's skin crawled.
Had they said something to Elijah then? To make him do this?
Angel was getting up from the table. "Thank you for dinner, but I should go."
"Wait, stay," Olivia said, catching his sleeve in her hand. They looked at each other, and Angel hesitated.
Logan saw it very clearly. He saw that Olivia liked him quite a bit, and he must have charmed her somehow to make her ask this of him, because Olivia's greatest wish was to exist to nobody outside their family, for no one to ever be invited into her personal life, to know anything about it, and for good reason too.
Angel was clouding her judgment.
"Olivia, he cannot stay here," Logan said under his breath, as if that would stop his voice from carrying to Angel, who was right next to Olivia. It didn't. "Who knows what the fuck he's mixed up in?"
"The Sons of Solomon have his brother!"
"I never said that-" Angel protested futilely.
"Be quiet," Logan snapped at him. He turned back to Olivia. Maybe she liked him too much to think about this clearly, but he did not. "He's going to bring down the entire Sons of Solomon here. What if they followed him? What if they're watching us right now? What if he's working for them?"
"He's not working for them. He's scared to death."
"Milo was a good actor too! You fell for his dumb lies too. And now you're doing it all over again."
Anger flashed in her eyes. "I am not doing it all over again! We can't just leave him to get caught by them. Even Milo was terrified of what they would do to him."
"Really, I can leave-"
"Shut up," the two siblings snapped simultaneously, and Angel shrunk away into his seat.
"Logan-"
"I'm not arguing with you-"
"He has nobody!" Olivia burst out. Her hands were clenched into fists, her knuckles white. "There is nobody to tell him it'll be okay!"
Logan's next words died in his mouth.
Angel was looking down at the floor. His shoulders were slumped. His eyes were drooping.
When he was sixteen, Logan had been at his worst, not because he had felt the most depressed but because it was the few months before Elijah and Blake found out how depressed he was. It was that time where he had no one who knew what he was really feeling, when he had no one that knew he was in pain.
Angel's eyes were pained, but he managed a small smile. "Olivia, really, it's okay. I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you for having me. It was nice."
Olivia's fingers curled into fists against the table, but she stood up when Angel did.
"Wait, stop."
They both froze. Logan grimaced when they both looked at him. He hoped this wasn't just another in a long string of misjudgments about Angel and his brother.
"Our place is safer than yours. The apartment has better security," he said. He didn't tell Angel it was because he'd called until witness protection posted an officer outside the complex. "Maybe it's best if you stay here tonight, until the Sons of Solomon give your brother back."
And it must have been a true testament to Angel's relief and exhaustion that he didn't try to deny it again, or fight him on staying. "Okay."
*****
Logan gave Angel some of his clean clothes to wear for bed and set up the couch for him in the living room with blankets and a pillow.
When Logan was done getting ready for bed, he peeked from the hallway into the living room to make sure everything was okay. Olivia was sitting on the couch with Angel, their heads slightly down. He couldn't hear anything they were saying.
Olivia hugged Angel and it took Logan a good few seconds before he could breathe.
He has nobody to tell him it'll be okay, he told himself, and turned away, and went to get ready for bed.
He was just getting under the blankets he laid out on the floor of Olivia's room when she came in. Her face dropped into a frown.
"What are you doing here?" she groaned.
"Sleeping."
"You don't have to watch me. I'm not going to do whatever messed up thing you think I'm going to do."
Logan threw an arm over his eyes. "I'm not watching you."
"I won't sneak away with Angel. Go back to your room."
"I said I'm not here to watch you. Just go to sleep."
Olivia picked up her pillows. "This is ridiculous. I'm leaving."
"I'm sleeping next to you whether you want me to or not. I'll follow you," Logan grumbled. Why was she making this so difficult for him? Didn't she take anything seriously? And why couldn't she see the danger they could be in, regardless of Angel's intentions?
She was so stubborn it made him want to claw his eyes out. She was so stubborn it almost made him throw up his hands and stomp out, screaming, see if I care.
"You don't have to police me!" She flung her pillows down on the bed and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're rude to Angel, you're rude to me, you can't trust that I can make a good decision about him, you insult me in front of him, and now you won't even let me sleep in peace!"
"If you just shut up right now, maybe I could sleep in peace too!" he retorted.
"You are impossible!"
"What do you want from me, hm?" he demanded. "You want me to tell you it's okay, let's just dive headfirst into inviting strangers over whose families are working shady jobs and are associated with the Sons of Solomon? You want me to just let you sleep here alone when who knows who is watching our house and a random guy is sleeping in our living room?"
"He's not random!"
"Is that the only fucking thing you got from that?"
"I hate how you're being!" Olivia hurled at him. "I'm not talking to you anymore!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
Olivia snapped off the light, got into bed, and pulled the blanket over her head. Logan put his pillow over his head and pressed his mouth into his forearm.
He was absolute shit at this. It should've been Blake or Elijah here. If Logan was just gone-
Logan squeezed his hands in his hair, pulling at the roots.
He counted down backwards from 100 in sixes. Then eights. Then sevens. When he was getting to nines, he heard a noise from outside.
He lay awake, heart slamming into his rib cage, until he heard the same noise again and realized it was the sound of the balcony door sliding open or closed.
He silently got up from the floor and when Olivia didn't make a sound, didn't stir from sleep, he crept down the hallway.
The boy, Angel, wasn't on the couch. He was standing outside, the balcony door closed behind him. Logan opened the door and stepped outside.
Cigarette smoke wafted past him when Angel turned to see who was behind him. In the dark, Logan could just barely see the red tinged around his eyes. He put his arms up on the railing next to him.
"Aren't you going to tell me to put it out?" Angel grumbled.
Logan recalled when he told Olivia to stay away from him because he smoked and cut classes. But he wasn't going to call him out on it. Now was not the time and he realized maybe the cigarettes were his own way of self-destruction.
They weren't so different, him and Angel.
One was addicted to nicotine, the other to pain. Logan remembered all those times Elijah let him do what he wanted, take the day off from school, eat only chips for three days straight, stop taking showers or cleaning his room or doing any other house chores, all because Logan was hurting and Elijah didn't know what else to do for him except let him try to cope in whatever way he knew without hurting himself.
"No," he said gently.
"If you're here to spy on me, I'm not doing anything."
"I know."
"And I don't need your pity. I'm not crying," Angel said.
Logan didn't say anything.
Angel rubbed his shoulder against his eyes and took another long drag of his cigarette. Ash floated down from the end. Logan tried to hold his breath.
"Why'd you come out here then?" Angel asked.
Logan looked down the balcony, where thirty feet below was the unforgiving concrete of the parking lot. That hard expanse of gray had looked severely and disturbingly inviting some of the long nights he'd been here. He knew the appeal of a quick end when everything was going to shit. But he didn't want that for Angel. He didn't want that for anyone.
"No reason," he murmured.
He leaned back, away from the railing, his back against the sliding door so he couldn't see the certain death he would face if his hands happened to slip.
Angel wiped more tears from his face and took a drag of his cigarette, his hands trembling.
He has nobody to tell him it'll be okay.
Sometimes, Logan hated when Elijah told him it would be okay. And sometimes, that was the difference between life and death. It was all or nothing.
Logan wanted his older brother so badly it made his fingers hurt.
"I think your brother helped me," he told Angel.
"When you were drugged?"
"My little brother Blake drew that picture of him from my memory. I went to a bar and someone slipped something in my drink and I think he brought me home."
Angel sniffled. "He's stupid."
"Most older brothers are," Logan agreed.
"I told him to stop all this. I told him so! And he wouldn't. He said he had to help people - but who's going to help him?"
Who helped Elijah? Logan used to think it was himself, but ever since Elijah was incarcerated, he realized how reliant they all were on him and how much they didn't know how to exist without him.
When Elijah got out of jail, because he would get out of jail, Logan was going to help him.
"He helped me," Logan said. And I didn't ever thank him. So I'm going to help him."
"You're just some random guy," Angel said. "You're in college. How the hell are you supposed to help him?"
"This isn't the first time we've dealt with the Sons of Solomon. They were after us where we lived before."
"In New York?"
That lie again. Logan kept up the lie for the time being. "Yes."
Angel was quiet for a while. He finished his cigarette and used it to light a fresh one. Logan grimaced but he kept his opinions to himself.
Angel took a long drag, then hung his arms over the railing, his chin against one elbow. In a quiet voice he said, "He's an undercover narcotics officer."
It took a couple of seconds for Logan to work his jaw. "What?"
"Marcus. He's an undercover officer. He was sent to infiltrate the Sons of Solomon."
Logan took a shallow breath in. His heart was beating too fast and his hands were getting clammy.
This was his dangerous job?
What the fuck. Logan couldn't swallow.
"Please don't tell anyone."
Through numb lips, Logan said, "I won't." He remembered to breathe in again. His woozy vision cleared a little.
A police officer? An undercover one? Who was to say he hadn't been deceiving them this whole time? Then again, if his brother was missing, maybe they had found out about him and kidnapped him. Or worse.
For so long, Logan had been afraid of police officers because of what happened to Olivia. But he did remember some hazy details from the night he was drugged, and the man Angel said was Marcus had probably saved him and taken him home.
"We'll figure out what happened to him," he told Angel.
But Angel shook his head. "You shouldn't get involved."
Logan frowned. "I thought you wanted him back."
"I do. More than anything." Angel's voice wavered. "But he's doing this because the Sons of Solomon are the reasons our parents are dead. If he found out I did that to someone else's family so I could get him back....he'd hate it. He'd hate me."
"He would never hate you," Logan said softly. "But that won't happen. We'll find him. And nobody is going to hurt anybody."
"You can't expect me to believe you would put your life on the line just because he helped you one time."
Logan looked up at the sky instead of the concrete on the ground. "I'm doing this for my own big brother too."
"Elijah?"
"Yes."
Angel pulled his sleeve - Logan's sleeve - over his hand and wiped his nose. Logan grimaced. "I miss him," he whispered.
"How long has he been gone?"
"Eleven days. The longest he was ever gone before was nine. And that time, someone from the station came and told me he was okay. I don't know what's happening."
His voice broke. Logan's heart cracked.
If he hadn't had Elijah when he was Angel's age, if Elijah had gone missing for even a week - things could have gone very differently for him.
Logan took a deep breath. And even though he thought he had no more of himself to give to anybody else, he found that he did have a spot deep inside that he reserved for Elijah that he could give to Angel, because Angel needed his brother too.
"You're not alone anymore," he said. "I'm going to help you. Maybe I don't know how right now, but I'll find out."
Angel managed a watery smile and finished his cigarette. Thankfully, he didn't reach for another one. "I thought you were going to hang me with my intestines."
Logan pushed himself off the wall, slid the balcony door back open. "Come back inside, smartass, or I'll strongly reconsider it."
Whenever I forget to upload Sunday morning, I just wait until the next week, but I'm starting grad school next week so who knows where I'll be then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Remember to vote/comment!
For next time: I think I originally had the beginning of the last arc plotted out, starting with Blake. Because Blake is amazing.